7 ms·

There's gotta be some middle ground. I think of san francisco, where the streets are clogged with people circling the block and folks are double parked everywh

by m463 2y ago

There's gotta be some middle ground. I think of san francisco, where the streets are clogged with people circling the block and folks are double parked everywhere.

joshlemer 2y ago
The solution, as Donald Shoup advocated, is to raise (or in some cases, lower, and in general, have it be dynamic) parking rates to market-clearing prices for parking spots such that there are is always one (but not too much more) free spot available on the block.
- immibis 2y ago
  How does this benefit poor people who could barely afford their homes and can barely afford to commute to their job halfway across the city by car? If applied to an area that already is only middle-class people, then sure. Or resident parking permits.
  - davidw 2y ago
    Part of what it allows is more housing (something that places like San Fran fail miserably at) because it's not constrained by having to provide 1.5 spots per bedroom or whatever arbitrary number. And more housing is what is needed to contain housing costs.
  - vorador 2y ago
    Most poor people don't own their house and often don't have a car – if you do own both you're middle class.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      That's true but I'm not really worried about them. I'm worried about the people who are doing everything right and about to not be poor. Increasing the cost of every rung of the ladder, like for example slogging out a shitty commute and parking situation for some time decreases the number of people who make it up the ladder. It's almost like a pseudo welfare cliff. Public policy should strive to avoid doing stuff like that. I'm of the opinion that when public goods are cheap enough to face shortages all the time the market economy steps up because better off people will spend more to save time/hassle. The problem is when things are expensive enough to kick out a lot of people, but not enough people actually alleviate shortage, which is basically how it currently goes with parking.
      - komboozcha 2y ago
        The market economy has solved none of these problems, and I suggest looking up just how socioeconomically mobile people in the US really are (it's not great).
      - wat10000 2y ago
        Price parking at the market rate. Demand for other forms of transportation increase substantially. Provide it. Poor people can now take cheap buses and trains instead of expensive cars. If you're worried about the transition, subsidize other forms of transport and build that out first, but forcing poor people to own cars just to make it to work is not a good way to help them.
        rob74 2y ago
        Price parking at the market rate. Political competitor criticizes you for being an "eco-dictator" and promises a return to free parking. You lose the next election. Sorry for the cynicism, I'm actually for increasing the price of parking, but recent political events have robbed me of any illusions that environmentally friendly policies have a future. When they have a choice between the environment and paying less money (short-term), most people will choose paying less money.
      - lmm 2y ago
        > Increasing the cost of every rung of the ladder, like for example slogging out a shitty commute and parking situation for some time decreases the number of people who make it up the ladder. It's almost like a pseudo welfare cliff. No, it's the opposite. A city built around everyone having a car makes car ownership a cliff. Normalising not having a car (and a reliable bus service - like the kind you get by turning street parking spaces into bus lanes - helps with that) makes the ladder gentler. If people are late for work because they couldn't find a parking spot just as often as people are late because the bus was late or didn't show, maybe there will be fewer horror stories of people getting fired because their car broke and they couldn't afford to get it fixed.
    - rpcope1 2y ago
      > most poor people don't have a car Outside of maybe a couple urban areas like NYC, that's patently untrue in the United States. It would not surprise me if the poor frankly had more and older/rougher cars than their more wealthy counterparts.
  - harryh 2y ago
    The solution to poor people not having enough money is to give them more money (if you really want to help them). It's not to make random consumer goods like parking free for all. If you do this, most of the goods will be used by people who are not poor, so it's very inefficient at helping you achieve your goal of helping poor people. In addition, many poor people won't want the thing you are making free. In the case of parking that could be because they don't own a car, so this plan doesn't help a portion of the population you are trying to help. Even more inefficient! When people think we should have free parking to help the poor, it's mostly just status quo bias at work. Most people would never say that we should make bread free. Or that we should make milk free. Parking isn't any different.
    - RealityVoid 2y ago
      I know this probably doesn't add a lot to the conversation but for me it articulated and cleared some inconsistencies I was failing to square up in my mind. So, nice, thanks. Do you have any books or articles that helped you in your analysis, I wonder?
      - harryh 2y ago
        You're welcome! The topical book to recommend here is obviously The High Cost of Free Parking. https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193...
        davidw 2y ago
        It's quite a big book. Henry Grabar's book, mentioned elsewhere, is apparently more approachable.
        ryantgtg 2y ago
        It’s big, but it’s very clearly written and you can likely understand the entire premise after a few chapters.
    - 2y ago
  - joshlemer 2y ago
    It benefits the poor by allocating resources as efficiently as possible. If there is someone who is poor enough that they need help from society/the government, it would be much more effective to transfer money directly to the, rather than very very poorly (probably regressively in fact) target that help by having the public subsidize parking on their block. They would rather have the $100 in efficient redistribution rather than the government spend $100 so that they can benefit by $1.
  - spamizbad 2y ago
    You can't means-test a parking space. You could, in theory, set parking prices based on the value of the land its by.
    - lmm 2y ago
      You can means-test a parking permit. It's dumb, but some cities do.
      - Gigachad 2y ago
        Rather than implementing all these complex and weird rules, you can just ensure everyone has enough money to afford the essentials.
  - jonstewart 2y ago
    One of the ways it benefits them is by reducing traffic congestion so buses can get through. A significant amount of traffic in parking-contested areas is from cars looking for parking.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  That's a necessity, but I'd also add legalizing construction of dedicated parking structures in more places. Land is at a premium in any desirable place and street parking is a lot less efficient usage of that than a multi-level parking structure. As a driver I also prefer them. Circling around blocks is a waste of time and annoying and my car is safer in a dedicated building that typically has some cameras
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    This is not really because parking lots are not legalized (they are, and in fact are often required) but because structured parking is so expensive to build; $25-35k per space in an above ground garage and $35-50k per space underground. https://dcplm.com/blog/cost-of-building-a-parking-garage/ https://dcplm.com/blog/cost-of-building-a-parking-garage/ The only place I'm aware of that bans new parking garages in the US is Manhattan, which has a general parking cap; but providing enough spaces for the actual car travel demand to Manhattan would necessitate leveling the whole island and then some, so the policy is there to get people to stop driving to a narrow, congested island.
    - ajmurmann 2y ago
      I am pretty sure that most areas here in Portland affected by the shortage of parking aren't zoned to allow building a parking structure. I haven't looked this up though. Edit: It's not downtown here that has this problem, but smaller, hip neighborhoods where you have a shopping street surrounded by an ocean of SFHs If high cost is the issue, it seems like people are complaining about lack of parking but don't want it enough to pay the real, unsubsidized price. So why should everyone else pay for them?
      - lmm 2y ago
        > it seems like people are complaining about lack of parking but don't want it enough to pay the real, unsubsidized price. That's exactly what it is. The normalization of "free" street parking does a lot of damage here.
    - 2y ago
- boogieknite 2y ago
  my solution is to look both ways before flipping the windshield wipers up on a double parked villain
- emmelaich 2y ago
  The other part is to make public transport more appealing.
  - n4r9 2y ago
    And cheaper! A roundtrip 10 min bus ride into town costs my family £6. That's more expensive than driving in and parking for 3-4 hours.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Is there at least seats available? As shouldn't public transport too be market clearing. So price should be high enough that there is always empty room in busses and the busses fully pay for themselves.
      - n4r9 2y ago
        Usually yeah. London has buses every 10 mins on most routes. It can get very crowded at rush hour or school run time though. Several groups (OAPs, kids, disabled people...) get discounted or free bus passes which I wouldn't want to change. Don't get me wrong - London public transport is fantastic. Extensive, frequent, convenient, and multi-modal. But the pricing is quite static so that people who use it for short inner-city journeys lose out a bit.
    - stretchwithme 2y ago
      How large is the family?
  - unyttigfjelltol 2y ago
    Yes, the system developed as it did for a reason, some of the more obscure being: + entrenched rent-seekers controlling properties in cities (it's almost axiomatic) + centralized transportation systems being subject to political and labor capture-- the main purpose is not great customer service + red tape in urban areas for everything + market forces created last-resort poor quality housing in cities + the car vs transit battle is winner-take-all at a neighborhood level, and transit does not compete properly on a metro or regional level, nor is the park-and-ride system fully competitive + car-compatible density negates transit density + different ownership model for rolling stock leads to over-investment for cars and under-investment for transit (you buy the car you personally can afford and it sits idle while you ride the subway car your grandparents' generation was willing to pay for collectively )
- vikingerik 2y ago
  Of course, the backlash to that will be "so parking is only for the rich?" Same as when we built express highways and priced the tolls to demand - see the complaints about "Lexus lanes". Capitalism is still the least-bad way of allocating a scarce resource, but of course those who get priced out will be unhappy.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
    The rich use helicopters...
- stretchwithme 2y ago
  You mean one spot available to pay for, right? Not a free one :-)
xnx 2y ago
I wonder if Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to affect this.
- gopalv 2y ago
  > Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to affect this SF public transportation is "good enough" that owning a car in SF is already a decision outside of pure transportation needs. I lived in SoMA for 2+ years without a car using ZipCar occasionally to drive to SouthBay, which was cheaper than the car payment, insurance and the parking fee put together. Plus my commute was to Palo Alto which was neat because every Caltrain out of SF stopped in PA in the mornings, I used the bullets both ways every day. Bicycles got me and my partner everywhere, faster and more conveniently (including in a bus or BART). We even went by to Napa on the ferry with bikes on it (once the Vine Trail cycle path connects all the way to Vallejo, I want to do it again - for now you can put your bike on a bus from Vallejo, no problem). The Lyft would be used for the Costco runs or to lug things out of Tech Shop back home, when working on something bulkier. Then I had a kid + moved to Mission bay which was still great for my Caltrain commute, but the kid changed the way I could just grab an Uber. There was no travelling light anymore. I struggled to use a cab because we had to drag stroller car-seat everywhere we went with the kid and often even when didn't have the kid, because you'd pick them up on the way back. The car was bought, even though it was a bad deal financially simply because it offered a fixed set of storage items we always had. Even getting from location to location, the car was the slower option, it didn't make any sense except to serve as a home base for all things you needed to have with you.
  - trhway 2y ago
    yep. People railing against cars are usually the younger ones without kids, pets, etc. So they don't understand the value of the car from their own experience, nor able to put themselves into the shoes of others due to that egoism of the youth (i've naturally been there myself :).
    - davidw 2y ago
      I'm a nearly 50 year old dude and cars are awful because I have kids and want to leave them a better city and planet. They are massive sources of CO2 right now. Even electric cars produce a lot of particulate matter from tires. They crowd out housing and businesses when we require their needs be addressed first and foremost. It's not so much a matter of a binary choice either for most people. You can use a car less and still have one for that occasional hiking trip or something.
amrocha 2y ago
Donald’s book The High Cost of Free Parking is about this! Really great read, highly recommended. Rest in peace.
andrepd 2y ago
The only solution to traffic is viable alternatives to driving. Not more parking, not more lanes, not more parking lots, nor more highways, not wider roads. It's viable alternatives to driving.
- komboozcha 2y ago
  Aye. Can't have your cake (car) and eat (drive) it, too. You just get 40 years of pussyfooting around the problem and making it worse.
maxwellg 2y ago
Shoup wrote a LOT about how charging too little for parking leads to everyone using it, which makes parking worse for everyone involved. San Francisco charges about $50c a day for residential street parking in areas that have a parking permit zone - which is decided on a block by block basis. Most street parking in SF is completely free. Raise prices even slightly, and people's behaviors will adjust accordingly. I have a friend who street parked two cars until he moved to a different neighborhood and had to start paying for permits. Now he just keeps his commuter and leaves his overlander in the suburbs.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  In the case of San Francisco it is a state law that limits cities to charging only as much as it costs to administer the program. San Francisco cannot have responsive residential parking under state law.
  - screye 2y ago
    California loves kneecapping itself. I guess the solution would be to make these spots 2/4 hr parking, instead of permanent overnight parking for all. Or remove parking all together and make it easy to build private parking lots. SF's lack of grade separated transport outside the narrow BART corridor also makes it hard to convince people out of driving. Buses and trams aren't acceptable alternatives for a city as rich and dynamic as SF.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      I think they can be more creative. Hire an administrator of residential parking and pay them $100 million. Also have a special 100% marginal income tax for city employees earning over a million.
  - yonran 2y ago
    No, according to this article by Chris Elmendorf and Darien Shanske https://www.spur.org/news/2020-12-18/how-solve-transit-budget-crunch-price-private-use-public-streets https://www.spur.org/news/2020-12-18/how-solve-transit-budge..., Proposition 218, 26, and the California Vehicle Code probably do not prohibit market pricing of residential parking permits as endorsed by Donald Shoup, since street parking is not just a fee-based service, but city-owned land that the city has the right to rent at market rate. San Francisco just hasn’t tried.
jltsiren 2y ago
There are no good solutions for existing neighborhoods with street parking. In new or completely redeveloped neighborhoods, you can make the streets narrower, the lots larger, and the property owners responsible for parking. But street parking in existing neighborhoods doesn't scale. If the neighborhood is getting more dense with gradual redevelopment, every solution to street parking is going to feel unfair to one group or another. You could issue street parking permits to the residents of the old properties but not of the new ones. Or you could adjust the prices of the permits to achieve the desired occupancy rate. Or you could keep parking free, fine improperly parked cars, and let the residents decide for themselves if the car is worth the inconvenience of finding parking.
- wussboy 2y ago
  Or you could provide meaningful alternatives to driving, which is my preferred solution but has a whole different set of problems (mostly zoning-related).
  - lmm 2y ago
    It's not enough. Driving is always the better option for an individual, even in cities with great public transport, so you need a bit of stick as well as the carrot.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      I hear takes like this all the time but it's just not true. Even without high parking costs the time and frustration expenditure of driving rules out that option for a huge fraction of trips.
- lmm 2y ago
  > You could issue street parking permits to the residents of the old properties but not of the new ones. London does this and it works well. New buildings have to be zero parking, there's some grumbling but residents of a new apartment block don't feel so bad when they lose something they never had - they know from the day they move in that they won't have parking, so if that's going to screw them over then they don't move there in the first place. And then you gradually reclaim the parking spaces as the area is developed.
ProcNetDev 2y ago
You should actually read Donald's book this is very well covered.

by m463 2y ago

There's gotta be some middle ground. I think of san francisco, where the streets are clogged with people circling the block and folks are double parked everywhere.

joshlemer 2y ago

The solution, as Donald Shoup advocated, is to raise (or in some cases, lower, and in general, have it be dynamic) parking rates to market-clearing prices for parking spots such that there are is always one (but not too much more) free spot available on the block.

immibis 2y ago
How does this benefit poor people who could barely afford their homes and can barely afford to commute to their job halfway across the city by car? If applied to an area that already is only middle-class people, then sure. Or resident parking permits.
- davidw 2y ago
  Part of what it allows is more housing (something that places like San Fran fail miserably at) because it's not constrained by having to provide 1.5 spots per bedroom or whatever arbitrary number. And more housing is what is needed to contain housing costs.
- vorador 2y ago
  Most poor people don't own their house and often don't have a car – if you do own both you're middle class.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    That's true but I'm not really worried about them. I'm worried about the people who are doing everything right and about to not be poor. Increasing the cost of every rung of the ladder, like for example slogging out a shitty commute and parking situation for some time decreases the number of people who make it up the ladder. It's almost like a pseudo welfare cliff. Public policy should strive to avoid doing stuff like that. I'm of the opinion that when public goods are cheap enough to face shortages all the time the market economy steps up because better off people will spend more to save time/hassle. The problem is when things are expensive enough to kick out a lot of people, but not enough people actually alleviate shortage, which is basically how it currently goes with parking.
    - komboozcha 2y ago
      The market economy has solved none of these problems, and I suggest looking up just how socioeconomically mobile people in the US really are (it's not great).
    - wat10000 2y ago
      Price parking at the market rate. Demand for other forms of transportation increase substantially. Provide it. Poor people can now take cheap buses and trains instead of expensive cars. If you're worried about the transition, subsidize other forms of transport and build that out first, but forcing poor people to own cars just to make it to work is not a good way to help them.
      - rob74 2y ago
        Price parking at the market rate. Political competitor criticizes you for being an "eco-dictator" and promises a return to free parking. You lose the next election. Sorry for the cynicism, I'm actually for increasing the price of parking, but recent political events have robbed me of any illusions that environmentally friendly policies have a future. When they have a choice between the environment and paying less money (short-term), most people will choose paying less money.
    - lmm 2y ago
      > Increasing the cost of every rung of the ladder, like for example slogging out a shitty commute and parking situation for some time decreases the number of people who make it up the ladder. It's almost like a pseudo welfare cliff. No, it's the opposite. A city built around everyone having a car makes car ownership a cliff. Normalising not having a car (and a reliable bus service - like the kind you get by turning street parking spaces into bus lanes - helps with that) makes the ladder gentler. If people are late for work because they couldn't find a parking spot just as often as people are late because the bus was late or didn't show, maybe there will be fewer horror stories of people getting fired because their car broke and they couldn't afford to get it fixed.
  - rpcope1 2y ago
    > most poor people don't have a car Outside of maybe a couple urban areas like NYC, that's patently untrue in the United States. It would not surprise me if the poor frankly had more and older/rougher cars than their more wealthy counterparts.
- harryh 2y ago
  The solution to poor people not having enough money is to give them more money (if you really want to help them). It's not to make random consumer goods like parking free for all. If you do this, most of the goods will be used by people who are not poor, so it's very inefficient at helping you achieve your goal of helping poor people. In addition, many poor people won't want the thing you are making free. In the case of parking that could be because they don't own a car, so this plan doesn't help a portion of the population you are trying to help. Even more inefficient! When people think we should have free parking to help the poor, it's mostly just status quo bias at work. Most people would never say that we should make bread free. Or that we should make milk free. Parking isn't any different.
  - RealityVoid 2y ago
    I know this probably doesn't add a lot to the conversation but for me it articulated and cleared some inconsistencies I was failing to square up in my mind. So, nice, thanks. Do you have any books or articles that helped you in your analysis, I wonder?
    - harryh 2y ago
      You're welcome! The topical book to recommend here is obviously The High Cost of Free Parking. https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193...
      - davidw 2y ago
        It's quite a big book. Henry Grabar's book, mentioned elsewhere, is apparently more approachable.
        ryantgtg 2y ago
        It’s big, but it’s very clearly written and you can likely understand the entire premise after a few chapters.
  - 2y ago
- joshlemer 2y ago
  It benefits the poor by allocating resources as efficiently as possible. If there is someone who is poor enough that they need help from society/the government, it would be much more effective to transfer money directly to the, rather than very very poorly (probably regressively in fact) target that help by having the public subsidize parking on their block. They would rather have the $100 in efficient redistribution rather than the government spend $100 so that they can benefit by $1.
- spamizbad 2y ago
  You can't means-test a parking space. You could, in theory, set parking prices based on the value of the land its by.
  - lmm 2y ago
    You can means-test a parking permit. It's dumb, but some cities do.
    - Gigachad 2y ago
      Rather than implementing all these complex and weird rules, you can just ensure everyone has enough money to afford the essentials.
- jonstewart 2y ago
  One of the ways it benefits them is by reducing traffic congestion so buses can get through. A significant amount of traffic in parking-contested areas is from cars looking for parking.
ajmurmann 2y ago
That's a necessity, but I'd also add legalizing construction of dedicated parking structures in more places. Land is at a premium in any desirable place and street parking is a lot less efficient usage of that than a multi-level parking structure. As a driver I also prefer them. Circling around blocks is a waste of time and annoying and my car is safer in a dedicated building that typically has some cameras
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  This is not really because parking lots are not legalized (they are, and in fact are often required) but because structured parking is so expensive to build; $25-35k per space in an above ground garage and $35-50k per space underground. https://dcplm.com/blog/cost-of-building-a-parking-garage/ https://dcplm.com/blog/cost-of-building-a-parking-garage/ The only place I'm aware of that bans new parking garages in the US is Manhattan, which has a general parking cap; but providing enough spaces for the actual car travel demand to Manhattan would necessitate leveling the whole island and then some, so the policy is there to get people to stop driving to a narrow, congested island.
  - ajmurmann 2y ago
    I am pretty sure that most areas here in Portland affected by the shortage of parking aren't zoned to allow building a parking structure. I haven't looked this up though. Edit: It's not downtown here that has this problem, but smaller, hip neighborhoods where you have a shopping street surrounded by an ocean of SFHs If high cost is the issue, it seems like people are complaining about lack of parking but don't want it enough to pay the real, unsubsidized price. So why should everyone else pay for them?
    - lmm 2y ago
      > it seems like people are complaining about lack of parking but don't want it enough to pay the real, unsubsidized price. That's exactly what it is. The normalization of "free" street parking does a lot of damage here.
  - 2y ago
boogieknite 2y ago
my solution is to look both ways before flipping the windshield wipers up on a double parked villain
emmelaich 2y ago
The other part is to make public transport more appealing.
- n4r9 2y ago
  And cheaper! A roundtrip 10 min bus ride into town costs my family £6. That's more expensive than driving in and parking for 3-4 hours.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Is there at least seats available? As shouldn't public transport too be market clearing. So price should be high enough that there is always empty room in busses and the busses fully pay for themselves.
    - n4r9 2y ago
      Usually yeah. London has buses every 10 mins on most routes. It can get very crowded at rush hour or school run time though. Several groups (OAPs, kids, disabled people...) get discounted or free bus passes which I wouldn't want to change. Don't get me wrong - London public transport is fantastic. Extensive, frequent, convenient, and multi-modal. But the pricing is quite static so that people who use it for short inner-city journeys lose out a bit.
  - stretchwithme 2y ago
    How large is the family?
- unyttigfjelltol 2y ago
  Yes, the system developed as it did for a reason, some of the more obscure being: + entrenched rent-seekers controlling properties in cities (it's almost axiomatic) + centralized transportation systems being subject to political and labor capture-- the main purpose is not great customer service + red tape in urban areas for everything + market forces created last-resort poor quality housing in cities + the car vs transit battle is winner-take-all at a neighborhood level, and transit does not compete properly on a metro or regional level, nor is the park-and-ride system fully competitive + car-compatible density negates transit density + different ownership model for rolling stock leads to over-investment for cars and under-investment for transit (you buy the car you personally can afford and it sits idle while you ride the subway car your grandparents' generation was willing to pay for collectively )
vikingerik 2y ago
Of course, the backlash to that will be "so parking is only for the rich?" Same as when we built express highways and priced the tolls to demand - see the complaints about "Lexus lanes". Capitalism is still the least-bad way of allocating a scarce resource, but of course those who get priced out will be unhappy.
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
  The rich use helicopters...
stretchwithme 2y ago
You mean one spot available to pay for, right? Not a free one :-)

xnx 2y ago

I wonder if Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to affect this.

gopalv 2y ago
> Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to affect this SF public transportation is "good enough" that owning a car in SF is already a decision outside of pure transportation needs. I lived in SoMA for 2+ years without a car using ZipCar occasionally to drive to SouthBay, which was cheaper than the car payment, insurance and the parking fee put together. Plus my commute was to Palo Alto which was neat because every Caltrain out of SF stopped in PA in the mornings, I used the bullets both ways every day. Bicycles got me and my partner everywhere, faster and more conveniently (including in a bus or BART). We even went by to Napa on the ferry with bikes on it (once the Vine Trail cycle path connects all the way to Vallejo, I want to do it again - for now you can put your bike on a bus from Vallejo, no problem). The Lyft would be used for the Costco runs or to lug things out of Tech Shop back home, when working on something bulkier. Then I had a kid + moved to Mission bay which was still great for my Caltrain commute, but the kid changed the way I could just grab an Uber. There was no travelling light anymore. I struggled to use a cab because we had to drag stroller car-seat everywhere we went with the kid and often even when didn't have the kid, because you'd pick them up on the way back. The car was bought, even though it was a bad deal financially simply because it offered a fixed set of storage items we always had. Even getting from location to location, the car was the slower option, it didn't make any sense except to serve as a home base for all things you needed to have with you.
- trhway 2y ago
  yep. People railing against cars are usually the younger ones without kids, pets, etc. So they don't understand the value of the car from their own experience, nor able to put themselves into the shoes of others due to that egoism of the youth (i've naturally been there myself :).
  - davidw 2y ago
    I'm a nearly 50 year old dude and cars are awful because I have kids and want to leave them a better city and planet. They are massive sources of CO2 right now. Even electric cars produce a lot of particulate matter from tires. They crowd out housing and businesses when we require their needs be addressed first and foremost. It's not so much a matter of a binary choice either for most people. You can use a car less and still have one for that occasional hiking trip or something.

amrocha 2y ago

Donald’s book The High Cost of Free Parking is about this! Really great read, highly recommended. Rest in peace.

andrepd 2y ago

The only solution to traffic is viable alternatives to driving. Not more parking, not more lanes, not more parking lots, nor more highways, not wider roads. It's viable alternatives to driving.

komboozcha 2y ago
Aye. Can't have your cake (car) and eat (drive) it, too. You just get 40 years of pussyfooting around the problem and making it worse.

maxwellg 2y ago

Shoup wrote a LOT about how charging too little for parking leads to everyone using it, which makes parking worse for everyone involved. San Francisco charges about $50c a day for residential street parking in areas that have a parking permit zone - which is decided on a block by block basis. Most street parking in SF is completely free. Raise prices even slightly, and people's behaviors will adjust accordingly. I have a friend who street parked two cars until he moved to a different neighborhood and had to start paying for permits. Now he just keeps his commuter and leaves his overlander in the suburbs.

jeffbee 2y ago
In the case of San Francisco it is a state law that limits cities to charging only as much as it costs to administer the program. San Francisco cannot have responsive residential parking under state law.
- screye 2y ago
  California loves kneecapping itself. I guess the solution would be to make these spots 2/4 hr parking, instead of permanent overnight parking for all. Or remove parking all together and make it easy to build private parking lots. SF's lack of grade separated transport outside the narrow BART corridor also makes it hard to convince people out of driving. Buses and trams aren't acceptable alternatives for a city as rich and dynamic as SF.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    I think they can be more creative. Hire an administrator of residential parking and pay them $100 million. Also have a special 100% marginal income tax for city employees earning over a million.
- yonran 2y ago
  No, according to this article by Chris Elmendorf and Darien Shanske https://www.spur.org/news/2020-12-18/how-solve-transit-budget-crunch-price-private-use-public-streets https://www.spur.org/news/2020-12-18/how-solve-transit-budge..., Proposition 218, 26, and the California Vehicle Code probably do not prohibit market pricing of residential parking permits as endorsed by Donald Shoup, since street parking is not just a fee-based service, but city-owned land that the city has the right to rent at market rate. San Francisco just hasn’t tried.

jltsiren 2y ago

There are no good solutions for existing neighborhoods with street parking. In new or completely redeveloped neighborhoods, you can make the streets narrower, the lots larger, and the property owners responsible for parking. But street parking in existing neighborhoods doesn't scale. If the neighborhood is getting more dense with gradual redevelopment, every solution to street parking is going to feel unfair to one group or another. You could issue street parking permits to the residents of the old properties but not of the new ones. Or you could adjust the prices of the permits to achieve the desired occupancy rate. Or you could keep parking free, fine improperly parked cars, and let the residents decide for themselves if the car is worth the inconvenience of finding parking.

wussboy 2y ago
Or you could provide meaningful alternatives to driving, which is my preferred solution but has a whole different set of problems (mostly zoning-related).
- lmm 2y ago
  It's not enough. Driving is always the better option for an individual, even in cities with great public transport, so you need a bit of stick as well as the carrot.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    I hear takes like this all the time but it's just not true. Even without high parking costs the time and frustration expenditure of driving rules out that option for a huge fraction of trips.
lmm 2y ago
> You could issue street parking permits to the residents of the old properties but not of the new ones. London does this and it works well. New buildings have to be zero parking, there's some grumbling but residents of a new apartment block don't feel so bad when they lose something they never had - they know from the day they move in that they won't have parking, so if that's going to screw them over then they don't move there in the first place. And then you gradually reclaim the parking spaces as the area is developed.

ProcNetDev 2y ago

You should actually read Donald's book this is very well covered.